URBACT Presentation, delivered by Jon Bloomfield at the FInal Conference of Mulhouse, 23rd November 2012

1. Moving from Innovation to Everyday
practice in public policy: Lessons of
the Local Action Plans.
Jon Bloomfield
23rd
November 2012

2. The TOGETHER project defined
 Last two decades have seen lots of experiments with
devolution and de-centralisation.
 Concept of co-responsibility starts with the citizen.
 It is an open-ended approach based on the use of focus
groups. Avoids danger of a problem-driven approach,
which knows issues before you start
 TOGETHER focuses on new ways of linking public
authorities and people
 Better to engage and involve citizens in developments
rather than just tell them once decisions have been
made.
 The economic and social crisis within Europe is a tough
background in which to introduce new thinking.
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3. Consultation and Pilot Actions
 Each city set up a Local Steering Group reflecting range
of interests to co-ordinate and oversee the project
 They organised focus groups in each municipality
 Open questions on well-being and ill-being
 147 groups across 8 cities; 14,000 responses
 Coded into computer system; then analysed
 Council of Europe have piloted this method widely
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4. Consultation and Pilot Actions
 It has thrown up 8 broad themes/dimensions and over 40
topics where indicators can be developed
 Highlighted variety of citizens’ concerns: economic,
health and education but also ‘hidden’ issues e.g.
respect, discrimination, isolation, community.
 Joint meeting and LSG analysed policy gaps
 Number of pilot actions suggested in each city, all based
on an active relationship between municipality, civic
associations and citizens.
 Putting co-responsibility into practice
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5. Measuring the Extent of Citizen
Engagement: The Seven Point Scale
Project developed 7 point scale. A way for citizens, non-
governmental organisations and councils to measure the
extent of citizen engagement in a project, programme or
strategic city initiative.
1. Minimal engagement
2. Formal partnership
3. An engaged partnership
4. Co-governance
5. Co-management.
6. Co-production.
7. Co-responsibility, where the elements outlined in
points 4-6 are combined across a whole sector.
A way to measure the pilot actions and the LAPs.
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6. Measuring the Pilot Actions
 Botkyrka – night patrols. Co-management
 Braine l’Alleud. Children’s Parliament. Co-production.
 Covihla – coloured Bag. Engaged partnership
 Debica – social integration club. Engaged partnership
 Kavala – social pharmacy. Co-management
 Mulhouse – multi-partite contracts. Co-production
 Pergine. –collective vegetable garden. Co-management
 Salaspils. NGO centre. Engaged partnership
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7. Local Action Plans (LAPs)
Each LAP has two tasks:
-an account of the project and how they have tried to
apply co-responsibility thinking in their city
-an indication as to how they will use this co-
responsibility method in the future.
Measured LAP against the scale. All had made progress
from where they started from but much harder to develop
across a whole department or neighbourhood.
Nowhere has been able to reach Point 7; a consistent
approach to co-management, co-production and co-
governance remains elusive. This suggests that the
adoption of a co-responsibility method will be a long haul
within all municipalities and that no quick fixes should be
expected.
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8. Obstacles
Real limitations with a time-limited, small-scale pilot.
 Project focused on social issues rather than everything.
 Need to change professional outlook among staff and
recognise this method takes time.
 Need for political leadership. Co-responsibility means
sharing of power. Complicated and difficult.
 Mainstreaming. The biggest obstacle:
- how to bridge gap from pilot to mainstream:
- how to generalise;
- how to scale up.
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9. Conclusions
 Significant and creditable progress across all its eight
partner municipalities in extending citizen participation
and promoting a co-responsibility approach.
 A range of imaginative pilot actions have been generated.
 The Local Action Plans show that in each city there are
plans to embed this approach within parts of the
municipality’s work once the project has been completed.
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10. Conclusions for URBACT
There are three tools which the project has developed
which can help the process of generalisation and
dissemination.
 The consultative computer tool for citizen engagement.
Developed by the Council of Europe the project has road-
tested this tool. In a simplified version, this could be used
widely by public authorities across Europe.
 The 7 point scale.
URBACT to encourage the wider take-up of this scale.
 A tool-kit on co-responsibility.
The project lead partner Mulhouse has produced In a
shortened version this will be a valuable tool-kit for
public authorities across Europe
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11. Conclusions
 Citizen engagement and co-responsibility is a growing
area of public interest.
 There is a widespread recognition of the increasing
importance of active public participation in civic affairs.
 This project suggests that many areas remain to be
explored.
 That would be a rich field for potential further
investigation within the URBACT programme.
 But most importantly, the project shows that there is real
interest in testing out methods of civic engagement and
improving citizen participation.
 “we are giving people the fishing rod and not just the
fish.”
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12. contact@urbact.eu
www.urbact.eu